


Watch For Me By The Moonlight

by Edonohana



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: A wounded stranger, a snowstorm, a homesteader, and more...





	Watch For Me By The Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).



Life on the prairie is simple. That's why I like it. It’s just you and your ability to hunt and track and camp and survive, the great earth beneath you and the vast sky above you, the sun and the moon and the wind, the rain and the snow, the rivers and the grass, the prairie chickens and the buffalo. Everything is beautiful. Everything can kill you or provide the means by which you live. 

I’d traveled and hunted and camped on the prairie for years now, going months at a time without seeing another soul. I’d had a lot of scrapes and hard times, but I’d always pulled through. 

Until this night, which looked very likely to be my last. 

Oh, I wasn’t giving up. That wasn’t in me. But as I staggered through the falling snow, wet and shivering and leaving a trail of blood from a wound I couldn’t staunch, my thoughts drifted in a way that I knew didn’t bode well and I couldn’t stop. If I dug in, I’d die of cold. If I kept going, I’d die of blood loss. If I set my back to a tree and waited, the beast that was tracking me would catch up. My best hope was to keep going and hope I’d stumble on a homestead, but out here you could walk three hundred miles in any direction and never…

Something hit me in the face. The beast! I lashed out. At least I wouldn’t go down without a fight—

A hand caught my wrist, stopping my blow with effortless strength. “Easy now. I won’t do you any harm.”

I had somehow ended up on the ground, prone in the snow. I hadn’t been struck by anything but the earth itself, when I’d fallen. 

“Come on.” It was that woman’s voice again, husky as if she wasn’t used to speaking. 

I blinked up at her, dizzy. Moonlight shone on her hair and skin, turning it all to silver in the drifting snow. She pulled at my arm, trying to haul me up. She _was_ strong, but not quite as much as I’d thought at first; she’d caught my blow so easily because I was weak. I forced myself to my knees, then to my feet, then staggered. 

She put her arm around me. “It’s not far. Just a few steps.”

“What’s not far?”

“Why, my homestead, of course. Weren’t you headed for its light?”

Only then did I see the welcoming yellow light shining from its windows. It was a wooden cabin, built of planks rather than logs and with real glass in its windows, not waxed paper as most folk used. And then I was inside, dripping all over her fine wooden floor and colorful rag rugs. A fire burned in the stone hearth, filling the cabin with its warmth and flickering light. 

She sat me down by the fire and began stripping off my wet clothes. “You’ve been shot! What happened?”

Even with my head spinning as it was, it occurred to me that I could say it was bandits or even a quarrel over furs or gold. Or just keep blinking stupidly at her and pretending I was too weak to answer, which was very close to the truth in any case. 

But her hands were warm and her fingers sure, and she’d saved my life and taken me into her home. While I sat there trying to decide what to say, she was busy cleaning my wound and pressing a mug of hot coffee laced with brandy into my freezing hands. It seemed wrong to repay such kindness with a lie.

“I’m a daughter of the moon,” I said at last. 

I expected her to flinch back, at the very least. But instead she smiled, then dipped her hand into her blouse and drew out a silver crescent on a fine chain. “Welcome, sister.”

“Oh!” I almost had to laugh at my own apprehension. What a lucky chance I’d had, to not only stumble across a homestead and a kind homesteader, but one who was a daughter of the moon herself. I nearly asked what she was, but though I was sitting half-naked on her hearth, I managed to recall my manners in time. Politely, offering rather than demanding, I said, “I’m a wolf.”

Her smile deepened, but she didn’t offer her own moon-self. Instead, she fetched me a shawl to wrap myself in, helped me strip off the rest of my wet and tattered clothes, and then assisted me to her own bed. It was very soft and very warm. I lay back with a sigh of relief, wondering what she was. It wasn't as if we could tell, but I didn't think she was a wolf too. All else aside, why wouldn't she have said so once I had? Slyly, I stole a quick glance around the cabin, guessing that if she wore the crescent of the Goddess, she'd also have an altar (disguised, most likely, but another daughter of the moon would recognize it) with some symbol of her animal self. But though I did spot the altar, a saucer of bone china holding smooth white pebbles, I couldn't interpret its meaning.

She sat on the edge of the bed, studying me as I studied her. Even out of the moonlight, her braided hair glinted silver. Her skin was very pale, her eyes very black. She was slender as a blade, small-breasted, narrow-hipped. An egret? A white deer?

"Did the person who shot you think you were an animal, or know you as a wolf-woman?" she asked.

"He knew. Caught me in the shift. We must be the only three people within a hundred miles, and he had to stumble upon me the moment I decided I'd be warmer as a wolf in this snow. Took me completely by surprise."

She folded her arms. "We can't let that go by, you know." 

"I know. But I'm in no shape to track him down now!"

"No need. Leave him to me." Her smile was chilly, more a matter of baring teeth. A snowy owl?

"Well, thank you. I'm doubly in your debt." 

She shook her head. "No debt. Or if there was one, you've already paid. The prairie and the sky can be so huge and lonely. It's been a long time since I've spoken. That's enough."

I was moved, both that she was lonely and that she admitted it, especially for a woman so self-possessed and cool. Surely she could have all the company she wished for the asking. Then again, wolves were choosy and some others were choosier. An ermine? A swan?

Impulsively, I reached up and touched the end of her silver braid. It was tied with a bit of rawhide, and the loose curl at the end was sleek under my fingers. I looked up into the infinite depths of her dark eyes, searching for a reply. She inclined her head, spilling more of the silver braid into my hand. I tugged off the rawhide and began to unbraid her hair. It parted like the tributaries of a river, then came together like an ocean. 

"I will be cautious of your wound," she said, and those were the last words either of us spoke. And she was right to be cautious, because I forgot all about it. 

 

I woke up rested and satisfied, with that profound sense of well-being you can only get after great sex or a great hunt. I stretched out, reaching for the lady of the house. Maybe she’d like one more for the road…

My hand touched grass and earth, not cotton sheets. My eyes flew open, and I sat up with a start. The homestead was gone. 

The prairie stretched out flat and dun around me for as far as my eyes could see, and wolves, even wolves in their woman’s body, can see a very long way. The sky spread out above me like a bluebird’s wing, and the air was rich with the scents of running water and young grass and prairie chickens. It was a beautiful spring dawn. 

The night before, it had been winter.

I stood up, then patted myself in bewilderment. The wound in my side had healed to a painless scar. And I wore clothes that looked like something I’d have dreamed of as a young cub, but closer inspection revealed to also be what I sometimes dreamed of now on weary days: ankle boots of butter-soft black leather with thin but tough soles that provided the sensual feel of walking barefoot but protected my feet from mud and stickers and sharp rocks, black cotton pants tucked into the boots, a long-sleeved white cotton shirt, a jacket of the same soft leather as the boots, a black leather belt with a silver buckle, and, around my neck and inside the shirt, a silver crescent on a fine chain. All of it fit more perfectly than I’d realized clothing _could_ fit. 

I had a new backpack, too. It was black leather and felt light, but was packed with a full canteen, a blanket of warm black wool that folded into a tiny square and unfolded into a square that could easily cover two, a sack of cornmeal and a slab of bacon, packets of salt and sugar, cooking utensils, matches, and a shiny folding knife.

I fingered the silver belt buckle, then the graceful crescent moon. I could think of only one explanation. But things like that just didn't happen. It was impossible!

As impossible as an entire homestead that vanished overnight? As impossible as an entire season passing in that same night?

I tilted my head and scanned the sky until I spotted it: the faint pale shape of the moon. 

“Thank you!” I called out. I’d expected to feel foolish, shouting at the sky, but I didn’t. Not at all. Not even when I added, “I hope to meet you again, some day… Some night, I mean!”

I didn’t get an answer, exactly. At least not one in words. But though it was day, a shaft of silvery moonlight glinted off the crescent moon in the palm of my hand.

I hefted my pack and set off whistling. Some moonlit night, I was sure, one very lucky wolf would once again get to make the personal acquaintance of the Goddess of the moon.


End file.
